By Jeff Keay, Open Space Committee
Sterling Greenery Community Park is a bucolic oasis off of Muddy Pond Road in Sterling. Along with shaded greenspace, comfortable benches and an unencumbered view of Mount Wachusett the park contains a popular playground and Peg’s Nature Pond. The creation of the park was the result of years of hard work by committed residents, town departments, and businesses. One of the original goals of the park was to create a venue where people of all ages could relax, reenergize, meet and mingle.
Even though the Sterling Senior Center is located only a few hundred feet from Sterling Greenery Community Park there has been no way for senior center clients to safely access the park through abutting woodlands, or easily get around within the park. The idea of constructing a trail to and through the park came up at an Open Space Implementation Committee (OSIC) meeting with Peg Spaulding, the retired Houghton Elementary School classroom teacher for whom Peg’s Nature Pond was named. Members of OSIC scouted a possible route, conferred with senior center director Veronica Buckley who enthusiastically endorsed the idea, formed a committee last summer, and the effort to construct an ADA compliant trail from the senior center to and around the park began.
One of our first contacts was with the Sterling DPW. Then superintendent Paul Lyons offered the help of the DPW crews and they went to work; clearing and widening the path through the woodlands, installing a culvert, relocating fencing, and laying and compacting a gravel sub-base from the senior center to the park. Pandolf-Perkins donated stone dust, the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts generously provided a $10,000 grant, and Stillman Landscaping was hired this spring to lay, level, and compact the stone dust surface.
When additional funding is achieved, future plans call for continuing the trail so that it completely circumvents Peg’s Nature Pond. The completed trail will be about 1/4 mile long. In addition to the trail, there are plans to improve the park by installing two new benches, planting four shade trees, and constructing a commemorative wall that will include the “memorial bricks” recognizing the original donors to the park.
This first section of the trail is now nearly complete, however, recent heavy rains have, unfortunately, eroded a portion of the trail. We are working to prevent any further erosion, put in place a permanent solution for rainwater drainage, repair the damage to the trail, and move forward toward project completion.
We envision the completed project as an ideal setting for mild exercise, relaxation and contemplation; as a venue for students at the nearby Houghton Elementary and Chocksett Middle Schools to learn about and appreciate the natural world; and as a way to fulfill the goal of the park’s founders who saw the park as a pastoral and welcoming gathering place for all generations to meet and mingle.
COURTESY: Jeff Keay